All Rise Fest: Wandsworth Sep’24
All Rise is a new experimental program and its focus is simple: making outdoor activities more accessible for marginalized communities. ALL RISE FEST came to London, for the first time, on Saturday, September 14th. Hosted at Parthian Climbing in South-West London, Wandsworth. Brought to you by Brain Dead, Arc’teryx, Long Beach Rising, and Ashima Shiraishi, ALL RISE’s focus from the beginning has been to expand inclusive access to climbing.
Back in the summer, Grayston, co-founder of All Rise and LBR (Long Beach Rising), reached out to us proposing the first European All Rise Fest. Their “Festival-Style” Redpoint Round is unique in that it is designed to shift the focus away from scoring, towards group interaction. In traditional redpoint bouldering competitions, the setters pre-assign point values to each problem based on its difficulty, and competitors naturally only attempt climbs that are at or above their limit. The festival’s Bouldering Finals were designed to shift the focus away from ‘winning.’ In an effort to stay true to All Rise’s guiding principles, we chose to utilize a gameplay mechanism known as “rubber banding.” By dispersing a mix of handicaps and advantages amongst the finalists, we keep the leading competitors from getting too far ahead, and the trailing competitors from falling too far behind (as if they were connected by a rubber band).
Once we heard what their principles were about, we got creative. The team wanted to reimagine what challenges and blocs could look like, enhancing the fun and collaborative element we believe can be the true essence of climbing competitions. From a minigolf course bloc where participants had to climb onto a volume, and then hit a ball into a golf hole, a partner bloc with a big swing, all the way until a London Underground inspired mantle challenge and a dog toy campus bloc, we pushed climbers to get creative and let go of any pre-defined expectations. This was no different in the finals round, where athletes had to jump into a punching bag, campus from a ring attached to an elastic band and a holds attached to Velcro system where climbers had to work hard on pulling holds away from the wall.
The event also counted with incredible panellists Henry Jay Kamara (filmmaker), Wanderers of Colour and Balancing Acts that shared their stories and common value’s within All Rise’s purpose, bringing together hundreds of people climbing for the same purposes and goals.
A massive thank you to the ALL RISE team for us to host this unbelievable event and to all who attended and help run the day!
Watch this space for the next epic event!